By mid-morning the milkshake counter had a line that was not, strictly speaking, for cups. The smallest passengers waited at the foot of the straw, tickets no bigger than a sugar grain, while the clerk held the blender still.
We asked at the kiosk. "The cream is the penthouse," said a woman with a napkin still in her collar. "They nod before they get off." The boy on the next stool swore his bubble had waved, then gone up alone.
The lifts are only paper thimbles on a thread of air. They rise when the straw is quiet, pause for the cream's hello, and open onto the foam as if it were a lobby with one step and no hurry.